The success of a business depends essentially on the requirement that customer demands for goods and/or services be fulfilled precisely, cost-efficiently, and on time. Therefore, many businesses make use of a supply chain management system to control and optimize their production and delivery processes.
Supply chain management may include the process of coordinating the flow of goods, services, information and/or finances between the involved parties, such as manufactures, suppliers, wholesalers, retailers, and consumers. This process may include, for example, order processing, information feedback, and timely delivery of ordered goods and/or services.
One process within supply chain management is checking whether a quantity of products ordered by a customer is available at some location at a given date. This check is also referred to as an available-to-promise (ATP) check.
A future demand for a product may consume the available quantity of the product during an ATP check. As a result, the ATP check of another requirement for the same product that is needed by a customer earlier may not be completely confirmed because the previously checked ATP requirement may have consumed the available quantity.